You Are Alone
by goddessofpainandagony
Summary: The story of Jake Peralta's life, from the day his dad walks out of it to the day he comes back in. And the decisions that come after could have life changing consequences.


**WARNING! This fic takes plenty of creative liberties with Jake's past. If you are uncomfortable reading about past sexual and physical abuse of a child, or the psychological damage that would result, please stop now. This entire story is centered around those ideas and themes. Read safe, alright?**

**Crosspost to AO3.**

* * *

You are seven.

You are crouching by your bed, with your hands over your ears and the newest issue of Batman on your mind. You're thinking about the totally awesome action panels, and the totally awesome dialogue, and the totally awesome silence you are totally hearing.

Because it is silent. You are alone in the house, and your parents are definitely not yelling at each other. Your mom isn't crying. Your dad isn't throwing dishes and, oh, that was probably a plate. _Guess we're eating off napkins for a while._ There's a bang, like a fist going through a wall, and you're climbing under your bed and thinking really hard about how totally awesome Batman is. Except.

Except it really is silent now, and you're starting to freak out because you should still be able to hear your mom crying. If she's not crying, something is wrong, and maybe you shouldn't have stayed in your room this time. You should have gone out there and got between them and yeah, sure, you'd have to cover the bruises for a while and maybe there'd be some blood, but you wouldn't have to worry about your mom and _why isn't she making any noise._

You pull yourself out from under your bed, and you start to hyperventilate now that you have enough room to work your lungs. You stand in your doorway. You don't have a door because your dad doesn't want you closing it when he comes after you, doesn't want an obstacle when he's angry and looking for something to hit. Sometimes you hide in the bathroom, and that door even has a lock, but you know you'll never use it because eventually you'll have to come out.

It's always worse if he has to wait.

You start inching down the hall and your breath is the only sound in the world and there's nothing but you and the stained white walls that stretch on for miles. You stumble into the front room and the door is open and the frame is cracked. You remember a bang-_a fist going through a wall_-and you can hear your mom now, sitting in the front yard and sobbing worse than you remember ever hearing. You can't see her face from here, and you won't know until later that he broke her nose, but you can hear what she's shouting between sobs now.

"Bastard", and "can't leave me", and a shaking "I _loved _you" and you know what must have happened. Your dad got really angry, the kind that makes the ring of bruises on your wrist ache in a purely psychological way, and your mom said something that made it worse and he went storming out to a bar. He'll be back tonight, stumbling through your empty doorway and pressing you into the mattress until all you can smell is alcohol and tomorrow he'll be there at Little League with a thousand-watt smile and sunglasses for the hangover.

Or he'll back tomorrow night, wearing the same clothes with lipstick stains on the collar and apologizing for missing Little League with his hands on your waist and that smile on his face, and then he'll punch you in the shoulder only it'll be the playful kind that only hurts a little and doesn't leave a bruise. Your mom will wash the red out of his shirts and apologize for driving him away and he'll be better for a week or two until he starts getting really pent-up again and talking about how he hates your mom, hates you, wants to leave and never come back.

It's a cycle, and it's the only thing you've bothered to memorize.

You know this. She knows this, and you don't know why she's making such a big deal this time in front of the neighbors when it's always the same. He'll be back, and at first you'll wish he stayed gone but then you'll remember that you love him and he loves you and you'll be grateful for the good days until you're back at the bad ones. She'll come back in any minute now and cry on the couch with the shades drawn like a respectable wife and you'll go sit in the bathroom and imagine what it would be like if you were brave enough to lock the door.

And he'll be back.

* * *

You are fourteen.

You're wearing a shitty hat that makes your mom wince when she looks at it, that you have to wash because she keeps stuffing it behind the washer or chucking it out the window into the yard. You're in a tattoo parlor with a permission form clenched tightly in both hands (and that was a bitch to forge, you had to give Gina control of your hair, wardrobe, and grooming for a _month_ and you just know she's been eyeing your shitty hat and she'll probably stuff it into a garbage disposal or chuck it into a forest fire she'll start in the name of fashion).

The guy asks how you want to pay, and you hold up a brand new rectangle of plastic that you're going into debt to own. The letter was for your mom, but you filled it all out in your name and set the highest limit they'd give a no-credit kid like you and you've already taken Devorah on a movie date with it. It was the best date of your life because it was the first time you didn't have to get your arm stuck up a vending machine to afford dinner.

Now, you run it through the machine and it beeps obnoxiously loud and then there's a needle in your nose and you're kind of whimpering, definitely not crying, and your nails gouge holes in the upholstery of the chair he set you in. But it's worth it when you're sitting on Nana's couch with a piercing in your very sore nose, Gina throwing out insults and your mom totally unaware at work.

You don't really know why you do this, and you kind of dread going to school with this thing since it's super uncomfortable and probably shouldn't hurt this much, but when you're mom gets home after midnight and sees the kitchen light shining off your nose and starts screaming _you just feel so good._ And maybe you flinch when she starts throwing off her scarf, her purse, her coat and gloves. And maybe your back aches when she takes a step towards you, hand coming up to point at your face (_"-did you do to your-"_) and you can't help the way you fly out of your chair and into the wall.

She stops short, and you two stand there five feet apart with a few hundred miles of silence between you, breathing into the void. She pulls back slowly, like she's taming a wild animal, and a bitter taste claws up your throat and no matter what you were feeling before now you're just angry and really fucking tired and you want her to stop looking at you with that wounded face.

"I'm sorry" is what she says, and you scoff. Your hands start to shake so you shove them in your pocket, and you think both of you are so goddamn broken because she's getting a misty look in her eyes and your throat is closing up. You want her to go back to yelling and you don't because it's familiar and horrible and normal and terrifying.

It's _normal_ and any other mother would be yelling at you for what you did (you broke the law) and any other teenager would be yelling right back, slamming doors and stomping feet and wishing for a new mom. Instead, she's already started crying and you feel like your father because you're the one who's making her cry. The thought almost makes you puke and you want to go hold her like you used to do when it was him making her cry, but you know from experience you can't be the one causing the pain and taking it away. You want to apologize, to cry with her, but it's 12:49 and she's tired and your voice isn't working. And you're the man, so you have to wait until there's a door between the two of you before you can start breaking.

"Go to your room." She doesn't say it hard, like a punishment. She chokes it out as she hunches over the counter, shoulders shaking with the effort of holding in her sobs, and your heart aches. She's begging you to leave her alone, and you're wishing she'll turn around and open her arms-pull you close and say she loves you even though you did something stupid. "We'll deal with this tomorrow."

You won't. You both know you'll never deal with this, this will be another thing you pretend isn't there at the rare family meal. She'll wince whenever she looks at your face, and hide you in the back of the synagogue so she doesn't have to explain why her fourteen year old son has a nose ring with an infection.

You hesitate before slinking past her, deliberately not touching her because you remember how she used to flinch back from men all the time, only this time she just starts crying harder. You take the stairs three at time, almost faceplant more than once, and slam into your room. You pull the door closed behind you.

You have a door now. Your mom pulled it out of the garage three months after he left. You didn't want to believe he was gone, even though he'd taken his old car out of the garage for the first time in your life, and the whole time she was installing it you sat in the hall and told her how upset he would be when he got back and saw it. She finally threw a hammer into the wall, nowhere near you and clearly not at you but for some stupid reason still managing to stop your breathing, and yelled at you to _"shut up, just shut up!"_

Later, she pulled you onto her lap and explained he wasn't coming back. You called her a liar, but you still folded into her arms because that was back when you two did that kind of thing. You tried to take the door off the next day, with Gina on your bed and your mom at work, but you couldn't figure it out. You still don't really close it, because it feels wrong. You've lived most of your life with that door open.

You get up and open the door.

You close it.

You open it.

You close it, lock it, and climb on your bed so you will definitely not open it again. You tuck the shitty hat into your headboard and lay down on top of the blankets, fully clothed, and you cry until you fall asleep. When you wake up sometime later, it's still dark outside and inside and you can't see and you feel the phantom touch of too-large hands.

You crash into the door, fumble the lock, and fling it open. There's a nightlight your mom leaves in the bathroom, and the light filters across the hall to you. You can see your shaking hands and you can see the corners of your room; there's no blood or masked murderers or fathers stinking of alcohol with hands that can hurt more than anything else. No mothers with hammers and misty eyes.

Within a week your sight starts to go, and you wait so long to tell your mom because there's an invisible wall that stops the two of you from talking about things. You go to the hospital and she picks you up, but she's away even more now because hospitals are expensive and you're not working so she has to. It's fine because you don't really care about being alone, and when the walls start collapsing Gina always lets you sleep on her floor provided you produce proof of recent bathing.

You figure the nose ring didn't work out, but maybe if you went back you could get a really shameful tattoo.

* * *

You are twenty-one.

You applied to a few colleges your last year of high school to please your mom, and you got rejected from every one. You took a few classes at the community college to please your mom, but it didn't take. You went into the academy after a couple years of wasting time, that was your real plan all along, and your mom didn't approve until she was there at your graduation-until she saw you in your uniform. She was crying, which still makes you the worst kind of uncomfortable, and she was hugging you, which you pretended to hate because it's been years since you'll admit you want it.

She demanded to meet your academy friends, so you showed her Stevie because you two were going to the same precinct and would probably be partners because the chemistry was undeniable. You didn't approach Diaz, because she was scowling and fading into the background and you knew better by then. You took your mom to dinner and went home alone to a really lame apartment, but you mostly paid the bills on time and it was in your name so you were stupidly proud anyway. You haven't seen your mom much since then, but she usually calls around your birthday.

You're twenty-one and you find Diaz in a bar late at night.

She's drinking, and you don't know how many she's had. You can never tell with Diaz. That's why you don't think twice about sliding onto a stool next to her and calling out an order for a jack and coke. Diaz doesn't lose control. She won't get sloppy drunk and start swinging on you, won't lurk in dark corners of your bedroom on nights you're too exhausted to sleep. Diaz would only hurt you if she really wanted to.

You think after all the drills you've done together, in the academy and this week of training, if she wanted to hit you she would have done it by now.

Diaz doesn't acknowledge you because she's the silent and deadly type, but she lightly taps your glass with her own when the bartender sets it down. He's a Puerto Rican guy, and there is a cute blonde girl passing out drinks at the other end of the bar. You like to keep your options open, but you're probably going home alone tonight.

"To no more drills." Your toast is quiet, and stupid and really not that funny, but it makes Diaz laugh. The shock of it prevents you from responding, and then it's too late for anything to sound natural. You take a sip and start coughing. You've never had alcohol before and even sweetened by the coke it burns down your throat.

"Call me Rosa" and she slams her glass down just as the bartender offers another shot. You're pretty sure she was waiting for you to be near death before she said it, because you are still choking and can't answer. You don't really know what to say. You know what that meant to her, but you can't think of an appropriate reply that wouldn't get you decked.

You land on "Y'know what the worst thing in the world would be?"

She hums inquisitively, and you take another sip in reward for knowing that word. You choke a second time, but Rosa waits for you to settle.

"One…thousand…push-ups."

"Ugh. Sounds awful."

You're smiling about it when she says "That's how you'd know someone was serious. If they do one thousand push-ups, they must really mean it."

"Yeah. It would be nice if it worked like that." She looks at you, so you have to continue "You never really know who you can trust. If people just used a thousand push-ups, it'd be easier."

"Okay." Rosa says it's nonchalantly, and at first you think she's agreeing, but then you look at her. The thing is, Rosa doesn't emote things. She controls every muscle in her body, and her expressions don't show anything she doesn't intend. So it surprises you to see some kind of sincerity filling every line of her face in a way you can't describe, but you recognize and feel.

Eloquent as ever, you say "Wuh?"

"Okay. A thousand push-ups. You'll believe me, I'll believe you. And if we're lying, we'll pay for it."

You think about that as you struggle through your jack and coke, and then a beer because you really don't like hard liquor, and then at home because you really don't like the idea of being drunk. You were right, you end up alone in your bed, but Rosa's words are still circling through your head. She didn't say anything else the rest of the night, even when you left. But she said enough.

Rosa's words always hold weight to them, always leave an impact like a fist to the face or a knife to the gut. It's stupid and pathetic and if it were anyone else you would think they didn't mean it, but it was Rosa. Just like Rosa doesn't hurt people unless she means it, Rosa doesn't say things she doesn't mean. There is no doubt in your mind that if you say 'a thousand push-ups' Rosa will believe you. And if you're wrong, she'll make you do them.

Even more, you know you'll believe her.

The trust that you suddenly realize exists with Rosa isn't as strange as it should be after the life you've lived. It feels natural, more natural than anything you've had with your mom in years and more comfortable than anything you had with your dad ever. It's better than any other relationship in your life right now, silent and distant as it is, and so when Rosa transfers to the 9-9 less than four months later you follow as soon as you can.

You don't regret leaving Stevie as much as you should because Rosa smiles at you when you first show up in the 9-9. Of course, she threatens you half a breath later, but you know that's just how she is and it feels good to be working with her anyway.

The 9-9 is good, and you know that. You like it here, better than your last precinct at least. You're totally cool and not at all afraid. Because the 9-9 is good, and we're all police officers, and no one wants to hurt anyone. You know that too.

You're not afraid of Captain McGintley because he's old and fat and doesn't move unless he has to. He likes to sit in his office, and when he does come out he usually turns around to go right back in. He doesn't hover over you like your last captain, doesn't use his size to intimidate you. Besides, you have a gun and a taser and pepper spray on your belt and you're pretty sure you could take down a man like McGintley if you needed to. Actually, with all the stuff McGintley lets you get away with, you find yourself starting to like the old man. Your last captain had a thing about tasers in the workplace.

You're not afraid of Boyle, your new partner to go with your new precinct. You thought you would be when you heard his name, but then you saw him. And then you heard him. Boyle is small and frail and sensitive. He talks about weird stuff like food you've never heard of in that high voice of his, and his hands are surprisingly slender. Not too-large at all. Nothing about Boyle is worthy of fear. He isn't an alpha, and he isn't mean or domineering. He bends to your will easily and it makes you feel like you're in control when you give him an order and he cheerfully follows it. You think most of the reason you like Boyle, in the beginning, is because he keeps trying to please you. No one's ever tried to make you happy like Charles Boyle, and it works.

You're not afraid of Hitchcock or Scully. They're already old enough to retire by the time you get there, and they don't do much except make the world a little more disgusting every day. They sit at their desks and sometimes magically migrate to the break room without anyone seeing them move. They eat obscene amounts of food in such a disgusting manner that it makes you feel better about your empty fridge at home and they don't really talk much. When they do, you can tell them "Not now!" and they'll just…stop. It's almost like a couple of ugly cats in the precinct instead of two grown men.

You're not afraid of Sergeant Jeffords. And sure, you know you can call him Terry, and you maybe would if you ever talked to him long enough. Which isn't because you're afraid of him, you just do a lot of work when Sergeant Jeffords is around and you don't have time to talk. But you're not afraid of him, or his large muscles and loud voice and general manliness. You're just fine, and he's never given you panic attacks so you don't know if the broom closet is the best place to freak in peace or if maybe there's some other room. But you're definitely not afraid.

And when you convince Gina to apply as McGintley's secretary, it's because you know she hates her job at the mall kiosk and not because you want a familiar face when Jeffords comes around. She doesn't commit to anything at first, but maybe some desperation leaks through because she's sitting in that desk outside McGintley's office before the week is out.

You laugh when she goes toe-to-toe with Jeffords, like she's defending you or something (which is totally unnecessary, because you're not afraid), and you believe her when she tells you he's a good guy because Gina wouldn't be wrong about this. She lets you sleep on her couch because she gets how you can be about these things even though she doesn't get why, and the next day you say hello to Terry and he drops his yogurt in surprise.

That makes you laugh too.

* * *

You are twenty-four.

Santiago is here. She transferred to the 9-9, but you didn't really care where she was coming from. You're not immediately attracted to her. You think she's cute, but you can get cute at any bar in Brooklyn without the mess of being coworkers. Besides, you don't do 'relationships'. You do one-night shame-fests and awkward mornings after. You do hot and fast and cold and distant.

You flirt at bars and stick your arm up vending machines and usually go back to their place so you can sneak out while they sleep. It's not like you're doing anything wrong. You don't lie or coerce. Everyone knows what they're getting into and nobody wants to stick around after. It's just fun and easy and, if you're being totally honest (which you rarely are), it's not common.

Usually, you're going home to sleep after working all day. Or doing overtime to break a case.

In fact, it's years before you start thinking about taking Santiago home and kissing her or doing the whole romantic stylez with her. But there is something early on, some magnetic pull. She isn't there for a week before you start noticing her curves. It makes you feel like a perv for seeing things like that in another detective, but when the first name-of-your-sex-tape joke slips out everyone else laughs and she gives you the exasperated look that means she isn't offended but she isn't going to encourage you. Eventually, people stop laughing, but the look stays and you figure it's just become a thing between you two. An inside thing. Which means it's okay, right?

You don't touch her. You don't watch her. And, most importantly, you don't think about her on cases. Maybe you notice the swell of her breasts when she leans across her desk, and maybe you look at her ass a couple times as she crosses the bullpen. But when it's the two of you in the field and you're taking statements or chasing criminals, you forget she's even a woman. You're professional, in the immature way you execute your profession, and you don't think about her ass when you're helping her handcuff a perp.

You're not like your dad, who would make women uncomfortable just with his gaze. She doesn't notice you looking, and it doesn't affect how you treat her. You have nothing to be ashamed about.

Except you still are, and you can't help making an ass of yourself in front of her.

She's rule-oriented, nerdy and lame and obedient. You mock her, and torture her with your handwriting and filing and hygiene. It pisses her off at first, but then she builds a wall between your desks that the ants can't cross and starts smiling at your embellished storytelling. She starts doing your filing for you, and you know she's trying to figure out a way to improve your handwriting without telling you.

Sometimes you remember to call her Santiago. Sometimes Amy slips out and it feels natural but you wish it wouldn't.

So, no, you're not in love with Amy Santiago. You're just the creepy guy who's watching her inappropriately in her workplace. You're the annoying coworker who's making her do extra filing. You're the obnoxious clown who sometimes gets a smile out of her. You're alone, she's alone, and that's better because you can tell you're not good for her.

Somewhere along the way it morphs into something else and she becomes something easy. Not easy like hot-fast-cold-distant easy, but easy like Gina used to be before she started gaining a life of her own that you didn't really know how to fit into. You find yourself talking to her and you're not thinking about the words coming out of your mouth, not thinking about the number of exits and the strength behind her muscles and the gun on your belt.

It's been a long time since you felt like yourself. She brings that back to you. Santi-_Amy _is like a USB cable connecting you to your roots, the ones you buried before your dad could stomp all over them. The ones your mom never tried to uncover. The ones that weave through your body and hold you together through night terrors and mind games and whatever personality you're faking that day.

Amy doesn't fix you.

You still wake up with screams choked in your throat and phantoms in the walls. You come to work with that bright smile you inherited from your dad, the one so reflective it can hide a battered wife and beaten child and certainly a few insecurities, and you tell your lies that make everyone fall in love with you. With time. The lies that make people laugh with you, believe in you, tolerate you after a few weeks of being near you. The lies that turn into games, bets, experiments with fruits and tasers. Anything that distracts, you're good at. Anything that keeps eyes off the dark circles under your eyes and the shaking in your hands and the weight fluctuations that come from your appetite depending on how powerful the memories are on any particular day.

What really draws you to Amy is the fact that none of that works on her.

She gets sucked into the games and bets, sure. But they don't distract her. She starts bringing you coffee, and neither of you mention sleepless nights and dark circles but both of you think about it. Her lunch box gets a little more full, and she balances it carefully on the wall between your desks, turned so you have access. There are fruit roll-ups you know she'd never eat, and the gesture touches you enough that you make a point of eating at least a little of what she brings you every day.

(Your weight evens out, and doesn't move much for years.)

She buys you an NYPD windbreaker you eagerly wear over your hoodies. It doesn't do a thing for the shaking, but you don't have the heart to tell her that has nothing to do with the brisk NYC air. You appreciate the gesture all the same, and you're pretty sure it's the best gift anyone's ever given you because of the intent. You can't remember the last time someone cared about things like you and the cold.

The best thing about Amy is how she treats you at night, on overtime when the bullpen is quiet and there's nobody else around until the night crew moves in. You two talk a lot, in the way you don't even talk with Charles. You talk without walls or expectations. There are jokes, and there's the good old Peralta charm coming through. But then one night she tells you she likes you better when you're not trying so hard, and you think that's the first time you fall in love with Amy Santiago.

And that time, you're not thinking about her ass or taking her home or kissing her. You're just thinking about how if you didn't know her you'd be cold and hungry and tired, and no one else would notice a thing because Amy Santiago is the only one impervious to the Peralta charm. You're thinking you hope she doesn't leave the 9-9 because you're both alone, only now you can be alone together.

You're thinking Amy makes a damn good best friend, with sympathies to Charles.

* * *

You are twenty-seven.

The second time you fall in love with Amy Santiago is the week before your twenty-eighth birthday. It's not a good day, partly because you're still awake from yesterday. Partly from the shit that happened yesterday.

You were getting close to breaking a case, spent all your overtime in one week to power through the last hurdle, and the Vulture came swooping in to steal all your work. You hadn't showered in far too long, you had slept in the break room for three nights, and the case was the only thing keeping you surviving (and the dregs of coffee that were least moldy and closest to your right hand on the desk). The Vulture brought two other detectives just to retrieve the paperwork, smacked you on the ass hard enough to make you flinch (or maybe it was the lack of sleep and creeping anxiety), and he left you with no case, no win, and no overtime.

Your mom called as you left work, drunk and in tears. She was talking about your dad, which is how you knew she was drunk. You stayed on the phone until she hung up suddenly (maybe to puke), and did your best to hear nothing she said. You went to a bar you'd never stepped into before, drank until the world got a soft glow around the edges, and hooked up with someone in a bathroom dirty enough to remind you of home. You weren't really paying attention to whoever was with you, not even enough to really be sure of gender (or you were drunk enough to forget the next day), but you're pretty sure whoever was with you was definitely in control.

Just like your dad, you lose everything when you get really drunk.

Unlike your dad, you fall apart into tears and need instead of hate and violence.

You ended up on Gina's couch, and you don't remember how you got there. Your smell had somehow deteriorated after an indeterminable amount of time without a shower, and you looked a mess. You were painfully aware how obvious your nightly endeavors were, and grateful that you ended up on Gina's couch instead of someone who would judge you.

You also ended up crying into your Nana's old afghan that you're pretty sure Gina stole, and Gina pushed a box of tissues to you with a stick from across the room. You started on your shared childhood with her, talking about how much you've missed her since you've grown apart. She didn't have much time for a response in the midst of your ramblings, and you wish she had broken in and stopped you because somehow you ended up talking about hiding in the bathroom, a door with a lock you'd never use, hoodies you wore for more practical purposes than style.

Worst of all, you were talking about your dad stumbling through your empty doorway and the backseat of his old car that always sat in the garage and something so much worse than bruises and a bit of blood.

Gina didn't say anything, but she met you in the morning with a hangover cure and a shower. She forced you through the routine of self-care and fed you some breakfast that was probably healthy or something, but you didn't really taste it. The morning passed silently until you pushed your half-full plate away and Gina immediately slugged you in the shoulder. You yelped and gripped the joint, the promise of a bruise thrumming under your fingertips.

"Don't you _ever _hide something like that from me again."

And,

"You're still my best friend, you idiot, you don't need to find a place in my life. The life of the great Gina Linetti has room for all!"

And,

"If you ever treat yourself like this again I'll come busting in with some truth-bombs and explode all over your sorry existence."

It didn't make you feel better, but it didn't make it any worse and when you reached the front door, she called your attention to the sign on her couch that read 'Gina's Jake Spot'. You liked the idea of having a safe place to go on nights you're too wound up to be alone, and it improved your mood long enough for Gina to get you into her car and up the elevator to your desk.

You wilted as you crossed the bullpen and crumbled into yourself in front of your computer.

You're still staring at the artificial light of the screen when Amy physically pulls your chair around so now you're staring into her beautiful brown eyes. You're busy getting lost in the glassy surface of her eyeballs and it takes a minute to realize she's been talking and you missed it, and wow, you're really sleep deprived and probably should have slept last night when Gina wrapped you in the afghan and left you in the dark.

You blink, and she asks if you're even listening. You don't see any point in lying now, and you tell her that as you admit the truth, and she gives you A Look. You think she's going to press you, ask more questions and try to get personal out here in the open and you know you won't be able to resist because you're exhausted and miserable and embarrassed already.

And then she says "I'm doing the paperwork on a perp named Evelyn Devors and that is a cartoon villain, isn't it?"

It's so shocking that you actually laugh, real and hearty and easy. Amy smiles, and pulls up the file and starts pointing out details of the case and it would probably be distracting you from your misery if you weren't fixated on Amy herself. You watch the curve of her cheekbone, the way her eyelashes brush her face when she blinks, the soft smile as she waves a ridiculous case in front of you and asks you to fetch.

You fall in love with Amy Santiago for the second time because she may be the only person in the world who can make you laugh in the depths of exhaustion, embarrassment, and in the aftermath of the kind of sloppy drunkenness that makes you feel sick, the kind of nightly endeavors that fill you with shame, and the kind of confessions that you've only dreamed about making (usually nightmares that end with your friends turning away from you in disgust, left to your phantoms and terrors).

Also, Amy's best curves are in her face and you've never realized how beautiful she is in the totally non-sexual way, and completely practical-beauty way.

* * *

You are thirty.

Thirty pretty much sucks, you decide. On its own, you don't like the number. It makes you feel old. And, sure, thirty isn't really that far up there and you've never been one to worry about your age and face and body (because if you think too hard you'll hate it anyway, so why fucking bother). But.

But one day you wake up on your piece of crap mattress in your piece of crap apartment that you're so fucking proud of because your name is on everything, you're surrounded by crippling debt and thirty years of mistakes, and your back hurts so bad you can't get up. And it fucking sucks. You're a thirty year old man living in a terrible apartment because you're finances are so fucked you'll never get anything better and you're old enough to wake up with back pain from sleeping on a bad mattress.

You slept on concrete in your twenties and then popped up for a day of chasing criminals, but right now you just. Can't. Do. It.

And now that you are thinking about it, you _do_ hate your age and face and body. And your apartment. And your debt. And your life. And your alarm clock that you can't reach to shut it off _and it won't stop fucking buzzing-_

You knew you shouldn't start thinking about it. Nothing good comes out of Jake Peralta thinking, ever. The only good you ever do is when an idea hits you over the head like a bat and knocks you in the right direction. You're an idiot. You're a bad detective.

You really need to get out of this bed before you spiral any further because the only rational thought you're going to have is remembering the fact that the worst thing you can do is be alone with your thoughts. Too much Jake Peralta isn't good for anybody, least of Jake Peralta. He's an idiot who doesn't really like being alone with himself, and here on his bed he's got nothing to distract himself with.

And, shit, now you're doing the whole third-person thing that's weird when Terry does it and creepy when you're doing it in your head and then you try to get up and escape your own head and it hurts so bad you have trouble breathing for a few minutes. Your muscles tighten and you try to breathe through the pain. You relax into the bed, slowly, and focus on counting breaths rather than spiraling thoughts. This works, at least, because every time you start to lose count your breath stutters and your chest aches in response. So this is good.

All you have to do is breathe through it.

And you do. You lie on your bed and breathe your way through a fucked up back and eventually you're able to move. Then you're able to sit up. And then you're standing and you're already an hour late for work but it isn't that bad because you're always late. You stumble your way into a shower and turn the water to scalding, and it's painful but the muscles of your back relax even more and that's what you need.

You can't be the awesomest detective ever when you're back is so tight you can't walk. You stretch a little on your quest for clean clothes and you feel a lot better. There's a subtle ache across your shoulders and down your ribs, but you're moving easily and you think maybe it's just a onetime thing. Then it happens again.

You keep waking up in pain all week long. Not as bad as the first time, not enough to knock you flat on your back for an hour, but it also stops getting better when you shower. The pain persists all day long until you finally go to a doctor, who tells you your back is just bad and you need a chiropractor. You take that and put a Peralta spin on it, and you get a massage from a hot lady in a cheap, hole-in-the-wall parlor that probably isn't exactly legal with their books but your back feels better when you leave, so you figure you don't need to investigate for once.

When you get back to work, you notice Amy for the first time in a week. She's got that pinched up look, like she's thinking really hard about something or in a mild amount of pain. You wonder why no one else in the precinct has noticed something's wrong with her yet, but to be fair you only notice when you tell one of those jokes that gets her to smile in the small way that means she doesn't want you to see her smile and instead she just glares at her computer screen.

It makes you feel off, like you're not doing something right and everyone can see your flaws and failures. The horrifying thought that you've been made-_the Peralta charm has worn off_-and she's looking beneath your shiny veneer and doesn't like what's she sees. The sinking, cold feeling in your stomach-_gonna puke gonna puke gonna_-as you consider what she'll do next. She could ruin you.

And it's all incredibly stupid, because she's not even paying attention to you and there's a million different reasons she could be upset that have nothing to do with little broken you and after all these years with Rosa and Boyle and literally everyone else you think one of them would get over your charm before _Amy_-

Except your charm never really worked on Amy. You've never been good at distracting her. She sees right through it all, smiling along anyway, and she's stayed for some inconceivable reason. Maybe she's just gotten tired with you. Maybe she's decided you're not worth the effort. You know how much effort it takes to be around you.

You get wound up and anxious in a matter of minutes, and when she goes slinking off for her break with a crackle of angry energy left behind, you go snooping.

Normally, you'd wait at least a day for something this drastic. You would try to cheer her up some other way, maybe even talk to her in that perfect, quiet time between your squad leaving and the night shift rolling in. But since you're pretty convinced her problem is with you, that probably won't work this time. Instead, you're going to investigate like the best detective of the 9-9.

You're looking for any Jake related paraphernalia-maybe one of her strongly worded eight page letters explaining how she's done with you. You take a brief look at the case on her desk, which should be a pretty interesting solve; you notice a man in hiding, a dead informant, and a lot of missing drugs. You push it aside and take a moment to examine the report she's filling out on her last lead; she ran a bust on a suspected hideout and came up empty. The report looks better than anything you've ever done in your life and just looking at it is giving you hives, so you move on to her drawers.

The first one has her lunchbox and a small bag of some type of healthy grain-like substance. Granola? You take a bit for curiosity's sake and determine it to be something bland. Raisin bran, maybe? You move to the drawer below, and find meticulously organized files. You flick through them for a while until you get to 'T' and find a transfer form.

You recognize it immediately. When Rosa moved to the 9-9 and you decided to follow her, you spent several hours staring at this form. You filled it out quickly enough, but you agonized over turning it in. What if Rosa left because of you? What if Stevie felt betrayed when his partner up and left, chasing a girl that never smiled? You had been strung out, and finally made the move quickly before you could stop yourself with overthinking.

Amy's transfer form is empty. She hasn't even put her name on it, but it's here in her desk and you're sure it wasn't here last month when you were looking for an interesting case to swipe. You sit staring at the form for another minute, considering what to do with this information. Then, you use deductive reasoning to go hunt down your suspect-one Amy Santiago.

You know Amy smokes when she's gets anxious, and you know she stashes her cigarettes in the evidence room since Terry complained about them in the bullpen and she promised to quit. You catch her as she's returning the lid to the box of evidence she's hiding them in, and she gives you a sheepish look that falls away into calculated emptiness when she sees the form in your hand.

"Were you going through my desk?" and nope, that's anger.

"Yeah, I was. You're transferring?"

"What is wrong with you, Jake? Give me that, it's personal" and she makes a grab for it and you pull back while wishing you had thought of what you were going to say.

"You're transferring?" is all that comes out. You've never been good with your words, just stringing them together until they begin to lose all meaning.

She starts crying. Not a lot. Not annoyingly, obnoxiously, ugly crying. Just a few tears and a red face and screaming about how McGintley isn't really a captain, how she wants to make commissioner one day, how she'll never get anywhere without a rabbi to mentor her. And she yells about you, obnoxious Jake Peralta going through her things and in the middle of her business, and if she needs help she'll damn well ask for it and you don't need to know everything all the time. She grabs the form out of your hand and stomps to the door, still muttering about how ridiculous you are.

And you get an idea.

You say, "I guess I can see why you want to go. What with me being here and all" and she turns back to you slow and dramatic.

"What" and it's not a question. It's a threat.

"I mean, I am the greatest detective in the NYPD. You feel overshadowed. It's okay, I get it" you're smiling as you say it.

"I am not threatened by you. I am twice the detective you are!"

"Prove it. That case on your desk-I bet it I can solve it before you do."

You're not sure it will work. Amy is an adult, not like you, and she might not fall for something like this. Then you see that familiar gleam in her eye-she's always been competitive.

"What are the terms?"

That's the first time you bring bets and cases together, but it's not the last. You and Amy always have at least one bet going on at all times. Sometimes you bring Rosa in, but Terry never really wants to and it's pointless with Boyle because he never really moved past worshipping you. The most fun is always with Amy, and while you notice the transfer form remains in her desk, you also notice that she never even puts her name on it.

And you like to think that's the first time she falls in love with you, when she realizes you can make her feel better when no one else even notices something is wrong. Then again, maybe you're just kidding yourself.

* * *

You are thirty-three.

You miss McGintley because you knew where you stood with him. You could produce a hamburger and he would let you get away with anything. He never got mad at you, but you have a suspicion if he ever did you could throw a happy meal his way and have more than enough time to get away. You liked McGintley because after a while he didn't even seem human; he was more like a security camera with no capacity to record. Just watching, never judging or adapting or interacting.

Holt is…not. Holt is very involved, and with good reason. He's waited for a command his whole life, probably, and he wants to be involved. He wants to _do it right._ You just work better with authority that isn't there. You don't like the kind of authority that tells you what to wear and goes through your locker to take pictures of your things and follows you around on cases. The longer he's near you, the more involved he's becoming, the tenser you become. Your nightmares get darker and longer and more frequent, so you start sleeping on Gina's couch constantly.

Holt never raises his voice. But you remember when dad wasn't yelling was the most dangerous time. When he was calm and quiet, when he spoke without emotion or cadence, that was when he would be touching your hair and your waist and pulling you into the backseat of his old car. If you resisted, that was when he would start breaking fingers.

It's the kind of lesson that only needs to be learned once.

You don't think Holt would do that-_but he's gay_-and you don't think he'd ever intentionally break your fingers. He's a respected officer of the law. But…you can never really tell what people are capable of. He _could_ do that, and even if he never does you still don't like how he towers over you and looks at you like he's still considering how he'll deal with you.

You still worry about what he's going to decide on.

You thought you were going to try at first, you thought maybe there was some middle ground that you two could settle precariously in and coexist. Clearly, the new captain wasn't going to be another McGintley, but maybe you could blind him with the Peralta Patented smile and keep him off your back. Maybe you could avoid each other, make like passing ships in the night and pretend nothing had changed.

Except every time Holt gave an order, you chafed a little bit. Something in you that innately hates being told what to do rebelled, and you would meet him with the kind of childish behavior that makes Amy's eyes do that wide, unblinking thing. And apparently, he's the kind of authority that likes to crack down on that kind of thing because he in turn would meet you with more orders, more punishments, raising the stakes and waiting for you to back down.

Instead, you try to drag him down to your level. It proves difficult with all his high morals and personal confidence. He's pretty hard to crack, and usually remains stoic in the face of your ridiculousness. It isn't until Halloween that you manage to draw him into the idea of a heist. It's the first time Holt and you are being ridiculous together and you know tomorrow it'll be back to him placing rules and you trying to force your way through them, but the night of Halloween you end up in the bar alone after all the other detectives have gone home, shrouded in a red robe with a gold crown on your head and a glass of whiskey in front of you. It's pretty much great.

Plus, you totally won the heist and that means that if you aren't smarter than Holt, at least you're more devious. You like being the smartest person in the room, because you're pretty sure you'll never be the strongest. But even better than being smart is being devious.

You don't know how long you sit in the bar, exchanging glasses of whiskey for cheap beers and driving up a tab you probably can't pay right now. Normally you don't do the whole wildly drunk thing, but tonight was good and you didn't see any reason to stop the fun earlier. You have a bottle of beer in front you, rolling it around with one hand, head resting against the table, when Holt shows up in front of you. He doesn't sit.

Of fucking course.

"Peralta, are you well?"

His face looks serious. Or is it concerned? Maybe he's happy. Damn, you are not getting better at reading him.

"Peralta? Do you require assistance?"

And where did he even come from? Holt doesn't go out to drink. And earlier, at the station, he had left the party to go do paperwork. Why wouldn't he go home to his private liquor and loving husband? Unless he was looking for you, which…is a really creepy thought.

"Are you going to hit me?"

It comes out slurred, but mostly understandable. It's been over three years since you got drunk enough to slur words, and the thought makes you laugh even though it's not funny. In other news (which also makes you snort because that's stupid too), Holt's face actually betrays some surprise. His eyebrows shoot up for a brief second, eyes widen, and you think you see a slight jaw drop before he composes his expression.

"I don't know what you are talking about."

You push yourself up to look at him head on, and the bottle rolls away from you. It falls off the table, but Holt catches it before it can shatter on the ground. He holds it for a moment, staring at you. Your skin does a weird sort of crawling thing that you don't like at all, so you start talking.

"You look like my dad. My gay, black dad" and you're laughing again because Raymond Holt looks nothing like Roger Peralta. Just like everything else you do, it all came out wrong. "I meant your face. He had that serious face thing just like you do. Am I in trouble?"

"No" and Holt does a small shake of the head and sits down across from you. He places the bottle on the table between the two of you and takes a moment to adjust it. "Peralta-"

"Because I keep waiting to see if you'll hit me and you haven't done it yet even when I definitely am in trouble and I probably couldn't stop you if you wanted to. So" deep breath because that was a lot to say all in one go "do you want to?"

Holt's face very clearly doesn't move. You can see a subtle tensing of the shoulders, and he straightens his spine a little more, which is how you deduce he is being careful about hiding his reactions from you. He obviously knows some surprise slipped through earlier and is determined to avoid a repeat. It makes you a little uneasy that you're all drunk and open over here and he's still hiding from you so well.

"Peralta. Look at me." You pull your eyes up to his. They're brown, earnest, and unblinking. "I will never hit you. If I or anyone else at the precinct threatens you or makes you physically uncomfortable, you have every right to report them. Your safety is important. Do you understand?"

"My safety is important" you repeat. No one's ever really told you that before, but you mostly expected something like that from a man like Holt. You know it's your paranoia and insecurity that makes you doubt him, not anything founded in reason. You can't help but relax as you see his sincerity, though. You believe Holt when he tells you he won't hit you, that no one should.

"Right. You need to know that. Now, do you need a ride home?"

You don't know how to answer that. You shouldn't be driving, but you've also walked yourself through some pretty sketchy neighborhoods before. You don't actually need much from other people. You may be in crippling debt, but you're still independent.

While you're thinking, Holt places some money on the table to cover the bill by your bottle, and then he helps you stand up. You blink and you're in the passenger seat of a car, Holt leaning across you to buckle you in.

"Do you have an old car? My dad did. I don't wanna go in the backseat, 'kay?"

Holt just squeezes your shoulder tightly and closes the door. The next time you blink it transports you to your apartment building and you have enough stubborn pride to wave Holt off and walk your own dumb ass up the stairs to your apartment, where you collapse on your bed fully dressed with your shoes pinching your toes because they don't really fit, but they were on sale.

And a few months later Holt tells you to trust him before you go to face the music in front of the commissioner. He tells you to hand over the evidence that will clear your name. He tells you to walk into that room and get fired. He doesn't tell you why; instead, he tells you to trust him.

Considering everything he's done for you, including not beating the shit out of you no matter how far you pushed, you think the least you can do is trust the man.

* * *

You are thirty-four.

The big three-four starts out pretty awful, all things considered. You spend the night curled up on a strange bed in a strange apartment, oddly nostalgic for your own crappy mattress and crappier home, with an icepack settled neatly between your aching ribs and a pillow hugged to your chest. Your hair is slicked to your head like an oily helmet and you're sweating through your wifebeater at a worrying rate.

Undercover for the FBI on the Ianucci case starts out daring and exciting and everything you've ever wanted out of your career. The shine wears off the further you infiltrate the family. These people aren't teenagers spray painting wieners on squad cars, they aren't masked morons egging houses on Halloween. These people are hardened, organized criminals and a few weeks into the assignment a body turns up, one GSW in the back of the head.

That sends a pretty clear message about what you're getting into, but there's no backing out now.

The whole family of criminals are really big on fitness and the kind of physical activities you've made a lifestyle out of avoiding. You haven't had a single gummy worm since Leo invited you to the gym. And it's not just the aches of hard exercise that keep you curled on your bed, moaning in pain. You are here to infiltrate the Ianucci crime family, after all.

There's crime.

You start off in the car, driving them around and looking menacing with Derrick. He's not a bad guy, really, and you find yourself starting to like him. Until Leo brings you both out of the car, and it somehow ends up with you holding the guy's arms behind his back and Derrick punching until you're holding dead weight.

It spirals from there and eventually you're alone on your bed, sporting a few bruised ribs, a black eye, and some level of concussion. You're alone, and you're probably not the best judge of the severity of head trauma, but since you vomited until you hurt everything that wasn't already aching, you're pretty sure something ain't right.

Amy would have a panic attack if you said that to her, and not just because grammar. (That grammar might just kill her, though.)

The year gets better as it goes. You get a girlfriend, and at first the best thing about Sophia is that she gets your mind off Amy. Amy, who is still dating Teddy. Amy, who sits three feet away from you every day, always close and yet out of reach. Amy, who you can't have.

Then the best thing about Sophia is everything about Sophia. She is beautiful, intelligent, intuitive. She doesn't talk about work, and you don't talk about work, and that means both of you need to branch out and find new ways to connect. You teach her about cheap and unhealthy food that stains your fingers and she pretends to hate. She teaches you about expensive wine and 'hors d'oeuvres' (which are way too expensive for how small they are), and you pretend to notice the supposed subtle differences.

Sophia is funny. She's nice. She listens to you, and remembers the things you find important. You learn how to listen to her, and remember what's important to her. Sophia is the girl who turns you from bars and easy nights with total strangers into something resembling monogamy. Sometimes you stay the night at her apartment. Once she walks into yours, and tells you to never bring her there again. You stop looking at other people entirely, and Amy is still three feet away but all you're seeing is Sophia.

Then she breaks up with you, and the year slams six feet under and you're pretty much done with thirty-four. This was the first relationship you were ready to go all in, risk and pain and everything scary that you never wanted before. It's the first time you've said the 'L-word' to a woman, the first time you've promised to put in all the work that makes relationships exhausting.

And she wasn't willing to give you the same.

It stings in all the worst ways and you think, _oh yeah, this is why I like bars and easy and strangers._ You're tempted to swear off relationships all together, and maybe that's the hurt talking but for right now all you can handle is drinking in your apartment and crashing on Gina's couch. Sophia ruined you for real relationships, and it's looking like she ruined you for one-night stands as well. Because it would be too easy for you to just _get over her._

You can't hide it from everyone at first. They notice, and there's pity and a desperate scrambling to cheer you up. It's nice in the way that you didn't think they'd care that much about stupid Jake Peralta fucking up his first big boy relationship, and infuriating in the way that you wish people would stop staring at your bleeding wounds and just let you go duct tape that shit in the dark.

You eventually land solidly on infuriating, and you put on that reflective Peralta smile and maybe do some stupid crap that makes people question your diploma, and everyone stops looking for scars that aren't forming. You keep bleeding and it doesn't look like you're going to scab over any time soon, and it looks even less likely that you're going to bleed out and die from heart break. Relationships suck, and breakups are worse.

Then your dad shows up.

And fuck him, because you started texting when you got back from the Ianucci case and you were still wired up on hard core crime and close brushes with death and that bastard was _talking_ to you. You thought maybe he'd grown up, and you knew you had. You thought maybe you could get started on the whole family thing _at last._

Except he only came into town because his son is a cop, and he needs a cop who will do what he says and fly to a different country to clear his name and then be familiar with the eventual disappointment when he flies off into the proverbial sunset with a busty flight attendant.

You cut him out for good. You delete his number, and you manage to look him in the eye and tell him to not come back. It feels good, travelling through your body and through the years to a seven year old boy afraid to close his door. Muscles you didn't realize were tense relax. It's the first time in your entire life that you don't care about your father, at all.

And then you get kidnapped, tied to a chair in the back of an ice cream truck. It can always get worse. Thirty four is pushing the limit though, because what else is there? Heartbroken, confronting a POS father, threatened by a gun-wielding cokehead, and then bowled over by a car on a case you can't drop because people could die while you're at home doing nothing. What else is there?

Detective Dave Majors, apparently. More specifically, Detective Dave Majors and Amy. Detective Dave Majors chasing Amy. Amy, who isn't dating Teddy. Amy, who sits three feet away from you every day, always close and yet you never reach. Amy, who you can totally have if you'd just _try._

Amy, who deserves so much better than you.

Amy, who isn't dating cops anymore. Compared to the Sophia-heartbreak, it's nothing. Sure, you like Amy. You love her as a friend, and you can't imagine your life without her. But it stays the same. Nothing has to change. You're not losing her, no one's forcing you to stop loving her. You still have Amy, you just can't have more of her.

For some reason, you still hurt. You ache and yearn and it gets hard to be around Amy. You don't totally get it. Well, you _get it, _but you don't get. It. You understand what she's saying, and maybe you can even understand why she's saying it, but the accepting part is a real bitch on this one.

The third time you fall in love with Amy Santiago is when she punches you in the face with her face.

It's supposed to be a kiss, but she's panicking and thinking fast and moving faster, so it hurts a lot more than any kiss you ever had before. You aren't expecting it, and maybe she isn't either, so she lands mouth open and her tongue is pressing against yours, teeth clacking as you both try to find some kind of balance.

It should be gross and painful. Her teeth scrape against your lip in an awkward way, and saliva escapes down your chin because neither of you were really planning on this. It's a wet, awkward mess of a kiss and the impact leaves your face stinging after she pulls away.

It really should be gross and painful. Instead, it's the best kiss of your life. It's Amy Santiago's face, Amy Santiago's tongue, Amy Santiago's teeth. It's all her, pressing against you in ways you hadn't known you wanted and pushing inside you. For a few brief seconds, there's so much Amy that there isn't room for anything else and it makes you realize that you could die like this.

You could spend the rest of your life wrapped in Amy Santiago, and die a happy man. When she pulls away, there's the immediate feeling of _wrong_ and you almost drag her back in, where she belongs. But she's got that nervous look, and there's a criminal about do some criminal shit, and Boyle and Rosa are still in the van. It'll have to wait.

Then you're kissing again. Against a tree, under the stars, with a criminal doing his criminal shit ten feet away. The kiss stuns you, and Amy pulls away to arrest the criminal because you're both cops and this is a case and everything here is entirely professional even if saying it squeezes the air from your lungs. You tell yourself to get over it, because Amy clearly doesn't want you and if you can't get over it then you'll lose her completely.

You're already emotionally wired when Holt announces his promotion, and you feel kind of shitty for not noticing the politics going on here before you lost your gay black dad. Everything that has happened exhausts you, and you think it's time to go fall down and sleep for a year because this much angst is giving you headaches.

When you go to find Amy, it's because you know she must be feeling wrecked. Whatever you're going through, Amy has to be feeling worse and maybe she doesn't want dumb Jake Peralta coming in to fuck around with her after a night of professional kissing, but you can't let her wallow alone.

Then you see her, and you realize you don't really want to be dumb Jake Peralta fucking around. You don't want to be friends, and you don't want to be three feet away and not reaching. You don't want to let this one go.

This time, the kiss is soft and slow and she opens up under your fingers like it was always meant to be, as you fall face first into Amy Santiago.

* * *

You are thirty-five.

You have a new, cushy mattress. You know everything you own is shit, but you never realized how bad it was before you got the mattress. Now…well, now you feel like you did in your twenties. No more tense muscles and desperate massages in sketchy establishments.

You have a new, beautiful girlfriend. Other than Sophia, you've never been in a real relationship. And everything with Amy comes so much easier than it did with Sophia. As you learn how to be a boyfriend with Amy, you start to understand how bad it was with Sophia. You were never comfortable with her. There were so many topics that were off-limits, and you remember planning conversations in advance so you wouldn't accidentally stumble into the taboo. Amy isn't like that, and you love her more for how much she keeps things the same as everything changes.

You have a new, improved relationship with your mom. She calls you a week before your birthday, and you decide now is the time to work on the family thing. You tell her about Amy, and decide to spend your thirty-fifth birthday with the two women you love. You might not be close to your mother, but this feels like the start of something you've always been missing. Your mom is going to be a part of your life, whatever that is.

Everything is looking up for you, finally, after thirty five years.

Then your mom opens the door, and you see your dad standing there with the thousand watt Peralta smile and his too-large hands.


End file.
